I was a 29 year old mother of three who had spent eleven years with my love. I was widowed. This diary begins five years after his death. I hope to capture the memories of this journey. The lessons. The joy. The sadness. The humor. The faith. The hope.

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Tuesday, March 16, 2010

ERRAND OF ANGELS

We can't go through life as silos and think we will enjoy it. We need to be engaged and involved with others, and with helping to carry the burdens that others are carrying. There was a time in my life that my time and availability were such I would seek out opportunities to help others. I enjoyed being engaged in this type of work. In more recent years, however, my resources of time and energy have been more drained and I have not been as 'busy' in the work of caring for others.

When life gets difficult, it remains important to serve others, as sometimes that can be the one escape you have from your own problems, as you help someone else with theirs. A difficult transition for me was to realize that I really needed others' help and to even, on occasion, ask for it.

I am grateful for those angels that were on an errand. There are many examples of times that I have had the help I needed, just when I needed it. Today, I will tell you of one.

When I first moved in to my house I had painted the walls 'Bonjour Beige'. It is a color that has followed me from house to house. Through the course of my first year in the house I made a few changes to the curtains, etc in the living room and as a result the walls needed to be touched up. Much to my dismay the company had slightly altered the color of paint and I did not have enough left over to paint the areas that needed it. I was left with splotchy looking walls. The area that was painted this color was a good sized area - and therefore was not something on a typical weekend I would have time to tear the room apart, paint it, and put it back together. So, I put the project on hold for a three day weekend.

Of course, three day weekends are few and far between and my list to accomplish on those weekends was LONG.... So, the paint job waited, and waited, and waited. Until one day a friend was over visiting and she inquired as to what I was doing with the walls. I explained my situation and she quickly offered to come over and paint it for me. I reluctantly agreed (feeling badly that she would take on such a large chore). KR brought TB and LS with her and in half a day had the walls painted - uniform. They had the rooms put back together before I arrived home from work.

The errand of angels... do they recognize the stress relief it is for me when they reach out in such significant ways?